First Grade Homeschool Curriculum Picks

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I cannot believe I’m writing about first grade homeschool curriculum right now! Squeaks’ Kindergarten year and Little Dude’s first year of preschool flew by!

With Little Dude doing two years of preschool, not much will change for his routine. I have a few things in the works for him (that I will gladly share when finished) but it will be mostly learning through play and lots of reading. So this post will focus just on our first grade homeschool picks for Squeaks. *mind blown*

So without further ado, here are our first grade homeschool curriculum picks!

(Scroll to the bottom of this post to see a video flip-through of our first grade curriculum picks!)

We will be utilizing a loop schedule (just like we did for Kindergarten) so I’ll start with the core subjects that we will cover everyday.

Math Lessons for a Living Education Level 2 from Master Books.

We loved Master Books math curriculum for Kindergarten (see all of our Kindergarten homeschool curriculum picks here). I’ll admit, near the beginning of the level 1 book I thought it might not be challenging enough for Squeaks (math obsessed!) and I considered switching to another curriculum for first grade. However, as soon as we hit place value and telling time near the middle of the book, things got much more challenging for her. I’m so glad we stuck with it because Master Books is so gentle. Plus, a wise friend reminded me that switching curriculum too frequently can leave room for gaps in a child’s education. Of course, if something really isn’t working, I’d most definitely switch, but after our experience so far it would take a lot to leave Master Books. So on to level 2 it is!

Get your EDITABLE Loop Schedule – Subject Format here!

Language Lessons for a Living Education Level 1 from Master Books.

This will be our first year using Master Books language arts curriculum. I purchased the bundle directly from Master Books so we would also have the suggested storybooks. For Kindergarten I focused more on reading skills, so The Ordinary Parent’s Guide To Teaching Reading from A Well Trained Mind was perfect by itself. I would simply grab a few spelling words out of the selection from the weeks reading lesson and we would focus on practicing those along with the reading concepts. However, for first grade, I wanted something that would specifically add in spelling, grammar, and phonics skills. Since I trust Master Books, I have high hopes and looking through the book so far, we won’t be disappointed.

My Story and the World Around Me 1 from Master Books.

From the website:

My Story and the World Around Me is a lower elementary social studies course that introduces students to history, politics, sociology, economics, and geography, while providing an understanding of God’s world and the cultures of the countries.

This will be new territory for us. I attempted a beginner social studies/history curriculum last year with Bede’s History of Me, and it didn’t last long. It was a very disjointed and ineffective curriculum. I had to do quite a bit of modification to some of the activities to make them work for Squeaks attention span. I recommend reading the reviews on the book it you’re considering it. It looks like a few people have had issues since I purchased.

Anyhow, I’m excited to try My Story for first grade! It starts with family, then your community, and works all the way up to world geography and information on different cultures. And just like all of Master Books curriculum, it’s taught from a Biblical world view, which I greatly appreciate.  I think Squeaks is really going to enjoy it.

Let’s move on to the first grade subjects we will rotate through once a week.

God’s Design for Life: For Beginners.

While the scope and sequence of this book recommends doing it five days a week, I chose to only do one day a week last year and it worked out perfectly. We did the entire animal life section for Kindergarten and it was great! The lessons are short, Bible based, and super easy to expand on with related YouTube videos, fun library books, or crafts. During Squeaks’ first grade year, we’ll cover the human body section of the book once a week. I already have a few of my own activities to add (like My First Anatomy game, Human Heart Anatomy, and Skeleton Anatomy), and I look forward to gathering other resources to build on what we learn.

Exploring Nature With Children from Raising Little Shoots.

While I’m excited to start learning about the human body in our science curriculum, I knew my little nature lover would want more. Squeaks is all about creepy crawlies, furry and cute, or crazy and amazing animals. She truly loves all of God’s creatures! So I’m hoping the Exploring Nature With Children curriculum will fit the bill. Living in the suburbs of Southern California means we might need to drive a bit to get to some good nature, but I’m up for it! Plus this curriculum comes with amazing books lists, a poem for each section, art to explore, and additional activity suggestions. There’s an amazing social media community connected with it as well for tons of other great ideas. I think this will even be fun for my four and (almost) three year old to participate in too.

The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading from The Well Trained Mind.

We are continuing on with our reading curriculum because it’s awesome. This book spans all the way from teaching the alphabet and letter sounds, to reading to longest and most complex words. Each lesson is short and very effective, including giving an actual instructor’s script.

The lessons include reading practice, but I like to add in BOB books for a bit extra (and so does Squeaks). We do one lesson from Ordinary Parent’s Guide and two BOB books every week, and it has been so fun to watch Squeaks reading skills progress.

I love that there is no time frame to this book, not even a suggested one. Each lesson is numbered, but it’s totally up to you how quickly you work through it; a single lesson a week like us, or one a day!

A Writing Workshop Journal

As a kind of bonus or extra fun activity to improve penmanship, grammar, and spelling, I’ve decided to add a writing journal once a week. It’s very basic and straight forward. Each page (which you can find in my Printables Library) has a space for Squeaks to draw a picture. Under the picture she’ll write a minimum of two sentences describing her picture on her own. When she’s satisfied with her work, we’ll go over it together, discussing sentence structure, spelling, punctuation, etc. I’m not going to be too terribly strict about this at first, because I want her to develop a love of story telling and writing. As this becomes more part of our routine, I’ll start correcting a bit more.

To inspire her artwork and the plot of her description, we’ll be using story cubes and story cards. Or she can simply draw whatever comes to mind! I’m excited to see her imagination at work.

Song School Latin 1

Last but definitely not least, we’re adding a language study! I’ve always known I wanted to teach my kids Latin. It’s the root of so many other languages. As they grow and decide they might like to learn French, Spanish, etc. it won’t be a big leap for them. Plus having Latin in their skill set will be valuable in theological study. I’m almost more excited to learn it myself!

Song School Latin has amazing reviews, and I love that it comes with DVDs and music to help with pronunciation. The lessons look short and very manageable, and again it’s something even my little guys can participate in to get a leg up.

I’m so looking forward to digging into these books with Squeaks, and including the boys in a few of our lessons as well! Check out this video flip-through to see inside the books.

Stay tuned for a look through our first grade Busy Binder coming soon!

Have you gone through any of these books with your first grader? What was your experience like?